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CHAPTER XXV.

M. Bailly's Theory of the Origin of the Sciences among the Nations of Asia.

FROM a consideration of the manners, customs, and laws of the Chinese, and a comparison between them and the Egyptians, of whom we formerly treated at large under the period of ancient history, some learned men among the moderns have formed a conjecture that the Chinese were originally a colony of the Egyptians, and they have thus endeavored to account for the striking similarity between them in many particulars of their manners, laws, and attainments in the sciences. But this similarity is not confined to the Egyptians and Chinese. These nations, together with the Indians, the Persians, and the Babylonians, all exhibit some of the most wonderful features of coincidence; and this circumstance would, therefore, equally conclude for the common origin of all those different nations. This subject opens views of a very curious and interesting nature.

In the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, we find an account of a dissertation read by M. de Mairan, in which that ingenious writer draws a parallel between the Egyptians and Chinese, from which he concludes, as the only means of accounting for their resemblance, that there must formerly have been a communication between these distant nations, and thinks it probable that a band of Egyptians had at some period penetrated into China.

M. de Mairan's parallel consists of the following remarkable instances of similarity, which may be classed under seven distinct heads.

First, the Egyptians and Chinese had the same fixed attachment to their ancient customs and abhorrence of innovations. Secondly, these nations were alike remarkable for the high measure of respect entertained by children to their parents, for the reverence bestowed on old age, and for the veneration they had for the bodies of their deceased ancestors. Thirdly, the Chinese and Egyptians were alike remarkable for their aversion to war, and deficiency in military genius; and both, in consequence, were frequently subdued by neighboring nations. Fourthly, both were remarkable for the same general knowledge of the arts and sciences, which they carried to a certain point of advancement, but were unable to go farther. Fifthly, the Egyp

tians had a hieroglyphical language not representative of the language they spoke, but of ideas only. The ancient Chinese had, in like manner, a hieroglyphical language distinct from the characters they used in ordinary writing. The Japanese and the Coreans derived the use of hieroglyphics from them, and employ them at this day. Sixthly, the Egyptians had a solemn festival called the Feast of the Lights. The most solemn festival of the Chinese is the Feast of the Lantern.* And in the seventh and last place, M. de Mairan remarks, that there is a similarity between the features of the Chinese and the ancient Egyptian statues.

A modern hypothesis, of a very ingenious nature, accounts not only for those remarkable circumstances of similiarity between. these two nations, but for many wonderful coincidences both in mannets and in opinions of the Indians, the Persians, the Chaldeans, and, in short, of almost all the great nations of antiquity. The hypothesis alluded to is that of M. Bailly, author of the "History of the Ancient and Modern Astronomy," and is contained in a series of letters addressed by him to M. de Voltaire, and published under the title of " Lettres sur l'Origine des Sciences et sur celles des Peuples de l'Asie." This theory is not only in itself a beautiful effort of philosophic ingenuity, but the facts by which it is supported tend to throw considerable light on the early state of the arts and sciences among the Asiatic nations.

It is the idea of M. Bailly, that there has been a very ancient people of whom every trace is now extinct; a polished people who had attained to a great degree of perfection in the arts and sciences, and to whom the Chinese, the Persians, the Chaldeans or Babylonians, the Indians, and the Egyptians, in short, all of the most ancient nations to whom historical record extends, were indebted for that measure of knowledge they possessed in those arts and sciences. "If you see," says M. Bailly, the house of a peasant chiefly composed of the rudest materials, but here and there interspersed with fragments of sculptured stones, or pieces of elegant columns, you must, of necessity, conclude, that these fragments are the remains of a palace, or elegant edifice constructed by an ancient architect of much greater skill and ability than the builder of that cottage." This principle is the foundation of M Bailly's hypothesis.

China exhibits the traces of a perfection in the sciences, to which the present Chinese and their ancestors, for many ages, have been most signally inferior. They are possessed of astronomical instruments which they cannot use, and the use of which they have no desire to be taught. Science we find among the

The authors of the Modern Universal History most whimsically derive the origin of this festival from the number of lamps which Noah was obliged to make use of in the ark, and make this an argument in support of their hypothesis, that Noah himself visited China, and planted there all those arts and sciences which were known to the antediluvian world -See Mod Univ Hist., vol. viu, p 352

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modern nations is progressive; the present age avails itself of the lights of the past. In China, all science is stationary, and has ever been so. The Chinese are at present, with respect to most of the sciences, like the inhabitants of a country recently discovered by a polished people, who have communicated some of their improvements to them, and left their instruments among them. If Captain Cook had left a quadrant and a telescope at Otaheite, the inhabitants of that island would at present know as much of the use of those instruments as the Chinese do, who have been astronomers for two thousand years. Hence it is reasonable to infer, that the Chinese have no natural genius for those sciences; they, therefore, could not have sprung up among themselves, but must have been imported into that country from a nation which cultivated them with intelligence and success. Fohi is said to have been the instructer of the Chinese. He was, therefore, probably, a foreigner, and brought his knowledge from a refined and scientific nation.

The date of the foundation of Persepolis, by Djemschid, is fixed by M. Bailly 3209 years before the Christian era. The city is recorded to have been founded on the day of the sun's entry into the constellation of the Ram. A people in their infant state, uniting themselves into society, cannot be supposed to be astronomers, or to mark the foundation of their city by the stars. Djemschid was certainly the leader of a colony of a polished people who took possession of a new country, and established there the arts and sciences which they had long cultivated at home. Djemschid was a stranger in Persia, as Fohi was in China.

The commencement of the Babylonian empire is involved in obscurity. We know, however, that the king of a people at that time named Chaldeans, took Babylon 2500 years before the Christian era. The Chaldeans were an enlightened people, and incorporating themselves completely with the conquered nation, assumed their name of Babylonians, as the Tartars, after the conquest of China, termed themselves Chinese. The priests, however, the depositaries of the sciences, kept their ancient appellation of Chaldeans, which thence became synonymous with soothsayers, or wise men. It is certain that the Chaldeans understood the revolution of comets, which was unknown to Hipparchus, to Ptolemy, and even to all the modern world down to the days of Tycho Brahé. Nay, Cassini himself in his youth believed comets to be nothing else than meteors. Is it not natural to conclude, that those Chaldeans who brought this high degree of knowledge to Babylon, were the remains of a most ancient and most enlight ened people?

The bramins of India believe in the unity of God, and in the immortality of the soul; but along with these sublime tenets, which pre-suppose an enlightened and reflecting period of society, they hold a variety of the most contemptible and childish doc

trines. They derived the former, we must presume, from wise instructers; the latter have been the result of their own ignorance. We discern in all the fables of their theology the remains of an ancient and a pure system of religious opinions, which has been corrupted by a superstitious and degraded people.

M. Bailly then reasons from the circumstance of certain singu lar customs and extraordinary traditions prevailing in different nations, that they must have derived them from a common source. The custom of libation to the gods was common with the Tartars and Chinese, as well as with the Greeks and Romans. All the ancient nations had feasts of the same nature with the saturnalia. The tradition of the deluge is signally diffused, and is commemorated among many nations by different religious institutions. The Egyptians held that Mercury had engraven the principles of the sciences upon brazen columns, which resisted the effects of the deluge. The Chinese have the history of Peyrun, a peculiar favorite of the gods, who was preserved in a boat from the general inundation. The Indians have a similar tradition. Vishnou, one of their gods, under the form of a fish, conducted the vessel which saved a remnant of the human species. The same tradition is to be found in the Edda of the Scandinavians only their deluge, instead of water, is formed by the blood of a giant. The tradition of the golden age, M. Bailly, with an elegant stretch of fancy, supposes to have arisen from the natural regrets expressed by the first colonies of this ancient people, when they recalled to remembrance the happy territory of their nativity, and painted it in the most flattering colors to their children. The fable of the giants attacking heaven is extremely general. The Indians and Siamese have it, as well as the Greeks. The tradition of the Atlantis, a lost continent, is current among the Chinese, and among all the Asiatic nations. Plato did not invent the story, but gave it as an old tradition among the Greeks. The doctrine of the metempsychosis was part of the religion of the Egyptians, of the Bramins, and of the Persians and the worship of the grand larna, the priest of the god Fo, in Tartary and in China, is founded upon it. Kæmpfer shows, that the Amida, or Xaca, of the Japanese, the Fo of the Chinese, the Butta of the Indians, the Badhum of the Isle of Ceylon, the Sommona-kodom of Siam, the Sommona-rhutana of Pegu, are all one and the same personage; a deity, whose sect the same author compares to the plant, termed the Indian fig, which multiplies itself by the ends of the branches becoming roots. But what constitutes the strongest resemblance, and is, indeed, the point of union of all these different religions, is, that they are all founded on one very profound. though erroneous, doctrine, of the two principles, an universal. soul pervading all nature, and inert matter upon which this soul

Hist. Gen des Voyages, tom. xl., 265.

exerts its influence. Bailly concludes justly, "A conformity in a true doctrine is not a convincing proof of a mutual understanding or concert; but a conformity in a false doctrine amounts to something very near such a proof.

M. Bailly then proceeds to point out many remarkable coincidences in matters respecting the sciences in all those nations we have mentioned. The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Indians, Persians. and Chinese, all placed their temples, and other public buildings, fronting exactly to the east; the buildings themselves standing due east and west. The worship of fire, or of the sun, has been the original worship of that ancient people from whom they bor rowed their arts and sciences; and the temples were so placed, that the first rays of the sun might penetrate into the sanctuary. We formerly remarked the exact position of the pyramids of Egypt, with respect to the cardinal points of the horizon, and thence argued that that people must have made a very considerable advancement in astronomy before they were able thus accurately to regulate the position of those great structures. The same argument must be applied to those other nations we have mentioned, who must all have either made the same progress in the science of astronomy, or have been taught a certain rule by that more ancient nation, whom M. Bailly supposes to have been the common instructer of the whole of them.

In like manner, the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese, had all the same period of sixty years for regulating their chronology. Whether this number of years was chosen arbitrarily, or there was some reason for pitching upon it, still the coincidence is an additional proof of the general conformity. The same nations divided the circle into three hundred and sixty degrees, and the zodiac into twelve parts. The week was universally divided into seven days; and what is almost astonishing, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Egyptians, designated these days by the names of the planets, ranged precisely in the same order, which order is entirely an arbitrary one, and not depen dent either on their magnitudes or distances from the sun Chance could not have produced such wonderful coincidences.

Bailly, in his ancient astronomy, has shown that the long measures of the ancients had all one common origin. He has proved, that the circumference of the earth, as given by Ptolemy at 180,000 stadia, and by Possidonius at 240,000 stadia; that two others, one cited by Cleomedes at 300,000, and the other by Aristotle at 400,000 stadia; together with a computation made by a Persian author, which brings the circumference of the earth to 8,000 parasangs are all one and the same meas. urement, only counted by stadia of different dimensions and by parasangs. He has shown that the Greek stadia, the Roman miles, the schæna of the Persians, the schæna of the Egyptians, the coss and the gau of the Indians, have all an exact and

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